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>> Well, there were quite a few guys. Um, there was like 12 guys, I think, after the cuts. So, the guys had cuts. Um, girls didn't. So, there was about, um, 11 girls, six varsity, five JV. I was on the JV since it was my first year. Um, but you need a minimum of four per team. So, the couple tournaments I didn't go to because I had something else going on, um, there were four, so they were still able to do the Bakers, but >> uh, how do you or your team qualify? >> Uh, qualifying for postseason. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, um, postseason, uh, Clearwater and campus split up. So, um, it was me, Asher, and, u Gavin uh, Crotch. Um, Crutch. We um we bowled individually at regionals and uh league um league first then regionals obviously. So to do that um I bowled by myself I was the only girl um even at regionals instead of putting Clearwater girls on the team since I was the only one like they just put Clearwater girl.
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I live on a farm. got cows and I've been just kind of trained. So, this is just something that fit into my lifestyle very well. >> What about you, Lily? >> Um, I agree. I've kind of grown up with it a lot. Um, I'd say our chapter is more community- based more than anything. We're not really into a lot of the contests, although we're growing to become more based off of contests and we want to go to state for a lot of things, but community is our number one priority and making sure everyone is involved is a great thing. So chapter I heard you guys use that. Uh what is does is that mean just like clear water is the chap like this is is that chapter is that kind >> So it's like it's like a club that's just the FFA name for a club.
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I'd like to take the roll if I may. Mrs. Abreu Here. Mr. Capano >> Here. Mrs. Fredo Here. Mr. Garcia Here. Mr. LeDrew Here. Dr. Pontiliano Mr. Russo >> [applause] >> Mr. Tarabokija Here. And Mr. Yunuzzi is not here. Mr. Reinfurt, this meeting will be broken into two pieces. Uh the first piece we'll be talking about is our 2026-2027 budget. And Mr. Tarabokija, I think you have a statement. I just like to read a statement about the budget. Good evening. Good evening everybody that came to this evening's meeting and will also going to watch us live later on. I'd like to begin begin by thanking our superintendent, our assistant superintendent, our business administrator, our administration team, and my fellow board members for the time and effort put into developing this year's budget. This is not an easy process. With the rising cost, real financial pressures, we worked hard to balance the needs of our students with the responsibilities we have to our taxpayers.
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And she did send me a chat a little bit ago. Perfect. All right, so we're looking at 5-305B, correct? Mhm. Okay. Did everyone have a chance to go in and make comments or do we need like a time just to kind of review before we start discussing? I like I've been deep in the trenches of test prep, so I have not read it yet. I I have been reading it while we just logged in. Okay. I'm way behind on the homework this week. Oh, you're fine. So why don't we go ahead and give everyone about like five Let's do five minutes cuz it is a pretty short one and then we can start the conversation after that if that works for everybody. Thank you. Good. >> Okay, I can be ready with that one if you guys are. Is everybody ready? I read it earlier, so I'm good.
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>> You're here. You're here. Presumably, you can raise your hand and you can talk because we can hear you. Um, yes. Thank you. So, you just want to acknowledge that you're here. >> Yes, I'm here. >> Okay. All right. So, we're all we're all here. Um so the meeting tonight is the budget hearing for the pelum fiscal year 27 bud budget. Um the process will be that we'll have the presentation of the budget. We will have any clarifying questions from the committee members about the presentation. Then we will take public comment and then we have we'll have committee discussion. Um, so with that, I think I'm going to turn it over to Shannon to start the presentation. >> Good evening. I am going to go ahead and share my screen. Um, okay. So, we are So, I'm going to share some of the slides from the budget book document, but not all of the slides.
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So thank you. Um, I am Brandi Kensman from the select board and um I'll be moderating the the forum tonight. And um joining me, I just want to introduce the folks that are here at the table with me. Um, starting from everyone else's left is uh Jim Adams, the superintendent of Ashland public schools, Lori Tosti, the chair of school committee, Paul Kendall from school committee, uh Claudia Bennett from the select board, and our town manager Michael Herbert all the way over there. So, um I just want to do a little bit of housekeeping before we get things started. Um, so we've scheduled this forum for for 2 hours tonight. Um, we'll have brief presentations um by Mr. Adams and Mr. Herbert, um but the majority of the time is really um for us to hear from all of you. So, um we've um we have a ton of time for our questions and answers.
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They've worked very hard on this presentations. We would like your cooperation. >> Thank you. All right. Thank you. We're going to start with our first period presentations. Our first presentation will be modern prisons when poverty is a crime by Tabitha Cabaral Elliot. Tabitha is a senior here at DHS. Tabitha has been part of T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T X club since her freshman year. She is also part of a rowing team, is a member of DHS TV media, participates in dance, and often volunteers. She plans to major in psychology in college with a final goal of becoming a lawyer. Tabitha chose her topic because of her interest in legal justice and law and because she feels passionate about sharing her knowledge with her peers. Please welcome Tabitha Cabaral Elliot.
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Like Augusta, they had Clearwater girls, but straight up on the program, it was clear water girl. >> Lonely one girl. >> Not lonely. It was really fun. I got to meet some other people on different teams. So >> that's good. >> Um, do you rent or do you have your own equipment? >> I have my own equipment. So, like for the first few practices and the tryyouts, I used my grandma's ball, which was actually left-handed since she's left-handed, and her shoes were about like 50, 45, 50 years old. So, they still worked, but like they were a little falling apart, but they worked for the tryyouts, so I didn't have to use the rental um stuff cuz it was really nice uh being able to use your stuff. It also kind of gave me like a feeling of like family vibes, you know? They're kind of great.
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>> So like this is the Clearwater chapter is our >> Okay, that makes sense. >> Um so what do you do specifically um in FFA? >> So I am the Clearwater FFA secretary. So I keep record of attendance of our officers, chapter points, and the involvement of our members and all the events that we have going on. And so we just have everything so much going on. And so it's really good to have someone keeping track of all that. And I'm really good at keeping everything organized and good for Van Allen to keep record of. >> What do you do, Landon? >> Uh I'm the vice president. So, I I make some of the bigger decisions on what we're going to do, uh, where we're going to go with the future of our chapter. Uh, I leave most I delegate a lot of tasks to other people.
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I also want to recognize our teachers and staff. What you do every day for our children is the foundation of this district and it doesn't go unnoticed. We were recently recognized by the Bergen County Office of Education for a perfect submission for something we're proud of because it reflects our commitment to doing things the right way. As both a board member and father with two children in this school system, this is personal to me. I'm not just speak I'm not speaking as an elected official. I'm speaking as a parent. I see the impact our schools have every day and that stays with me in every decision I make. We understand the weight of this budget. It reflects carefully, though tough, choices and commitment to doing what's right for our students and our community. I'd like [snorts] to thank everybody that assisted with this budget. That's all I have to say, Mr.
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Okay. I think I saw that just Justin was on here, too, right? Yeah, I was going to say um we can move forward. Okay. James um Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and get started, but James let us know if you need to stop. I actually deleted my comment on the first one, so um I do have a question about our definition for school day, but I think it it really tightly aligns to Amy's first comment. Um so I kind of was just going to hop down to what she has. Um Amy, did you want to share your thinking first? Sure. Um well, I was just making sure I was unmuted. Um but it says I'm just essentially wondering if this needs to be modified to include like after-school programming, like 21st century. But I'm not really sure how to word it because like that in like when we have sports, kids are texting, like will message their parents and things like that.
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and Tanya is going to start us off and then I will take over and um finish it and and then we'll take questions and things of that sort. >> Hey there. Good evening everybody. I am happy to be here and excited to share with you um some just some basic information around Pelum Elementary. As you know rural schools have heart. Go rural schools. Um, Pel Elementary has 127 students and uh, it's a small school. It allows for personalizing. Um, things when we think about the students we serve, but what I want you to know is that we have 22 approximately 22% of our students with disabilities. Uh, we have a low number of uh, multilingual learners. It's at uh,8%. And then we have um, a relatively high 29% of economically disadvantaged students. uh with Pelum, we're going to take a look at academic performance. But as I tell you all each time I do the MCCAST uh um data report, remember that because it's a small school, one student can fluctuate the scores and you'll see volatility in it um which you've seen over the years.
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There's been some questions that have been submitted online in advance, so thank you to everyone who has um submitted some questions. So we'll start with those and then we will open it up um to folks here in the room at town hall and also on Zoom for any questions or comments that people want to share. Um, to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak, we will uh limit everyone to 3 minutes each at the microphone. Uh if we have time after the first round and there's still questions, we are happy to have everyone come up and take a second round and um have another 3 minutes. So, sound good? >> [sighs and gasps] >> Okay. All right, let's get started. Um So, the agenda tonight, um first I'll I'll talk a little bit about where we are in the budget process and how we have gotten to this place that we are here tonight.
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Hello everybody. Today I want to talk to you about an issue that very pe few people even know exists and that is the case of modern debtor's prisons. So let's get started. First, what is a debtor's prison? According to the American Civil Liberties Union, debtor's prisons occur when indigent defendants who owe unaffordable fines, costs, and restitutions are imprisoned because they can either not pay what they owe or cannot pay it as fast as the court demands. Now, the United States formally abolished debtor's prisons in 1833. However, it still widely occurs and that creates kind of a paradox in that imprisonment of debtors is technically illegal. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look on paper, it doesn't happen. However, there are documented instances of it happening by the thousands across the country every day. So, let me take you to the landmark Supreme Court case Bearden v.
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But I got my ball off Facebook Marketplace. It was like $8. And then recently I got it drilled for my hand so it fits my hand exactly. And that was about like $25. So it's not too expensive. But new balls will run you from anywhere from 100 150 to like anywhere from to like $1,000. So my ball is a straight core and it's a Columbia 300 white dot. So it's a straight core. So it goes exactly like how how you would bowl it. So, it's like a house ball. House balls are the ones that are at the bowling alley. And then some people on my team have uh strike balls, which have like an offset core. So, they have a metal thing inside or some kind of thing inside that spins really fast. So, like it hooks, but those are those run really expensive. And I didn't want to do it for my first first year bowling.
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That's pretty much my main job. >> Yeah. Um, who is the president? >> Uh, Kayn. >> Um, so you you mentioned Miss Van Allen. Um, kind of talk about Miss Van Allen. like how is she as a teacher and how do you uh how do you like kind of uh like how does she how does she kind of form you in FFA and how has she helped you? >> Uh I'd say Miss Van Allen is one of the only reasons that the FFA chapter in Clearwater is so prosperous that it is she puts so much time and effort into everything that she does. I mean, yeah, with the amount that she puts in there, I couldn't imagine even trying. I mean, it's four times more than I put into calculus. >> Yeah, >> it's ridiculous. >> How about you, Lily? >> Um, she really just makes sure everyone is seen, heard, and just active in everything.
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Capano. Thanks, Mr. Tarabokija. Appreciate the feedback and kind words. Again, I personally my name is Lou Alfano, business administrator. I want to thank again the board, obviously the public, all staff, Mrs. Calbrese, Mr. Reinfurt, Mr. Albano, the entire business office staff. Special thank you to Mary Ann Corrarie who uh worked with me on quite a few nights and quite a few weekends. I want to thank them and I really want to thank also the mayor and his team for being so flexible in regard to understanding the challenging dynamics, really unique dynamics that have presented itself this year. A really unique year, so um I think what's going to come out of that this year, and we've talked with Mrs. Calbrese and Mr. Reinfurt, is that we really learned the minutia about our business and we're going to build and we have built and we're going to build even a better mousetrap moving forward.
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But if you're in programming, like 21st century, you're looking at an enrichment class. And it can be anything from knitting to STEM science to math or literacy practice, and you shouldn't be using your phone during then. So, I just don't know how to word that, and I just wanted to bring it up should it be an issue. And that kind of aligns to what I was thinking as well. Um Have a good day, everybody. So sorry. Um My wondering was it here it says before after school at the dismissal, and we have done like if you were on campus or even if you were on the bus. And so the and and that it causes a lot of complexity. So, my wondering was do we want to modify it? Like it's before like you're using basically like maybe you're not filming after school, but you do you do have the capacity to like use your your phone for like phone calls or texts or something.
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Um but right now we have an ELA um academic uh result of 49% meeting and exceeding and then 54% in our math. there is a gap that exists uh with our high need students. I'm going to only speak about high need students because as I remind you that we don't 10 is the magic number in order to report and talk about uh disparities between other subgroups. So we do not have 10 in our other subgroups. So I will only talk high needs. So between our high need students there is a 26% gap in ELA and a 21% gap in math. when you uh take a look. Thank you, Shannon. When you take a look at this, um I want you to know that we have our enrollment that's listed there. And I want you to look, you can go ahead down to the enrollment um numbers because I think that's important for Pelum.
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Um, then I'll turn it over to Michael. Um, the town has always taken a very fiscally uh conservative approach to um to our finances and he will walk through ways that we've saved taxpayers um kind of millions of dollars over the years um whether it was uh through proactive changes we've made or uh programs that we've participated in or even um grants that we've received. Um, then he will talk through how your tax dollars are spent so you can understand a little bit about how that works. Um, and also just an understanding of what's really driving the costs that we're seeing and really the reason that we are all here tonight. Um then we will turn it over to Mr. Adams who will talk about the work that Ashland public schools has done internally um and the need really to um to restructure um the district for financial stability going forward.
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